'Maurice is an aspiring film director who talks about movie making with his friends, Steve, Zig and Caroline. He uses his power and edits out any statements that displease him. He asks opinion of a man on the street.
'Maurice wants to commit suicide and analyses three famous suicides, Mishima, Socrates and Kirilov (a character in The Possessed). Maurice starts murdering the crew on his film before forcing Steve and Zig to assist his suicide.' (Production summary)
'Shot in late 1972 and released at the Melbourne Filmmakers Co-op in mid-September 1974,Dave Jones’ Yackety Yack is one of the key films made in that transitional period between the relative “void” of homegrown Australian feature-film production in the 1950s and 1960s and the “renaissance” that gathered steam in the mid-1970s. It opened to minimal fanfare in that pivotal year, a 12-month period that saw unprecedented commercial success at the Australian box office through films like Alvin Rides Again (David Bilcock and Robin Copping), Stone (Sandy Harbutt), Petersen (Tim Burstall), Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (Bruce Beresford) and Number 96 (Peter Benardos), but also saw the arrival of such prescient, independent, socially engaged and less audience friendly works as 27A (Esben Storm), Between Wars (Michael Thornhill) and, more playfully, Yackety Yack.' (Introduction)
'Shot in late 1972 and released at the Melbourne Filmmakers Co-op in mid-September 1974,Dave Jones’ Yackety Yack is one of the key films made in that transitional period between the relative “void” of homegrown Australian feature-film production in the 1950s and 1960s and the “renaissance” that gathered steam in the mid-1970s. It opened to minimal fanfare in that pivotal year, a 12-month period that saw unprecedented commercial success at the Australian box office through films like Alvin Rides Again (David Bilcock and Robin Copping), Stone (Sandy Harbutt), Petersen (Tim Burstall), Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (Bruce Beresford) and Number 96 (Peter Benardos), but also saw the arrival of such prescient, independent, socially engaged and less audience friendly works as 27A (Esben Storm), Between Wars (Michael Thornhill) and, more playfully, Yackety Yack.' (Introduction)